Waste Water Recycle & Reuse: A potential solution to water crisis in India?

In our last class, we discussed about the issues and current scenario of water supply in India. I feel a lot can be done in this regard if people change their thought and perception about reuse of recycled wastewater. There are many places in India, with no source of surface water. Hosakote, for instance, located at 30 km distance from Bangalore, is a town where the entire population is dependent on ground water. The excessive extraction of ground water had resulted in the water table going as low as 1250 feet, making the water unfit for potable use. The only solution to meet the water demand would be to reuse the recycled water. The secondarily treated water coming from STP at Bangalore could be further treated to required level to make it fit for potable purpose, but it’s not happening as people are not ready to use recycled wastewater for potable use. So, it has been decided to mix the recycled wastewater from STP to a lake (called Doddakere Lake) and then treat the water from Doddakere Lake in a WTP and then supply it (i.e. Indirect Reuse of wastewater). But even then, using treated water, extracted from source which has been directly mixed with secondarily treated wastewater will not be acceptable by the users. Therefore, it is planned to set up a TTP at the upstream of Doddakere Lake, to tertiary treat the secondarily treated water coming from STP  and then blend the tertiary treated wastewater (which is considered fit to be directly used for a no. of purposes) with the dirty lake water (which is also receiving direct wastewater from other sources). I feel this is simply waste of valuable resources and money. Around 25 crore of initial investment and nearly 7 crore (that will increase every yr) of O&M cost will be spent in the TTP which is hardly needed. And all this could be avoided if the perception of people about use of wastewater changes. Many countries (e.g. - Singapore) are entirely dependent on direct use of recycled wastewater for meeting the water demand of people.

There is another good project in the planning stage that envisages to further treat the secondarily treated wastewater from STP to tertiary level to meet the industrial water demand of Mysore. A very similar project was planned few years back in Surat, even the bidding was done & private player was selected for implementing the project. But then, with some political interference, it was cancelled. Now, I think it is happening in EPC mode.

Both the above mentioned projects are envisaged to be implemented in PPP mode. They are in planning stage now, and their pre-feasibility reports have already been prepared and submitted to the Govt. The reuse of recycled wastewater is a wonderful concept and has the potential of replicability in a no. of places (IDD, GoK has already decided to replicate these projects, if successful, in two more towns in Karnataka). I think, this concept if widely implemented, can revolutionise the water industry and solve the problem of water crisis in many parts of the country.